Statements by Church leaders on Easter as about "Hope" as though it were some generic consumer offering sound abstract and detached. Salvation is all about us, as a fulfillment of our individual projects.
Not so - so far away from the heart of the matter.
"Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing" as Stanley Hauerwas puts it challenges all our presumptions of God and what salvation is all about.
We are made members of a kingdom governed by a politics of forgiveness and redemption. The world is offered an alternative ...
Such a politics is not constituted by vague longings for distant ideals but rather by flesh and blood. (p.31 Christ - Shattered Cross) - the flesh and blood of those drawn into the life of God as forgiveness of our enemies.
Friday, 10 April 2009
Thursday, 9 April 2009
Easter - Religion or Football in Australia
ABC radio announcer at the start of the call of the Collingwood vs Geelong AFL game (heard on my way to the Thursday evening service:
"Its Holy Thursday Evening here at the "Melbourne Cricket Ground"
That about sums it up.
The sacred doesn't disappear - it migrates?
"Its Holy Thursday Evening here at the "Melbourne Cricket Ground"
That about sums it up.
The sacred doesn't disappear - it migrates?
Theology, Easter, Baghdad
Peter Dula reflects on the meaning of theology and of Easter in the light of his time in Iraq:
During Holy Week of 2004 I was in Baghdad, where I worked as coordinator of the Iraq program for the Mennonite Central Committee. That was the week that the stupidity of the Iraq war became unavoidably obvious, at least outside the Beltway. On Palm Sunday, the day the people of Jerusalem took to the streets to welcome a messiah they did not comprehend any more than we do, thousands of Moqtada al-Sadr’s followers shut down central Baghdad’s streets, protesting the arrest of a top aide and the closing of al-Sadr’s newspaper.
Later that week-the week when we celebrate Christ’s triumph over death, and forgiveness over vengeance-the American military unleashed an assault on Fallujah in which 518 Iraqis were killed, including 237 women and children. In an Easter Sunday letter to the Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship I wrote: “Jesus has indeed risen even if it was a hell of a long time ago and even if there is no evidence of it in Baghdad.” At a church the night before, I had listened to a priest preach on a story from St. Ephraim, then announce the times for the next day’s Mass, adding an ominous caution: “Please go directly home. Do not linger and do not walk home in large groups.”
Peter's conclusion offers little comfort but a reminder of the reality that the path to the resurrection is not one goes anywhere except through Good Friday.
Why is it a theological failure, if it is, to say that “Jesus is risen even though it was a long time ago and there is no evidence of it in Baghdad”? What is theology? Say that theology calls us to remember the eschaton, to remember that the end times are not on their way but began at Golgotha two thousand years ago. Say that theology means negotiating the edges between celebrating the already and mourning the not-yet, and confessing that we rarely know which is which-and still less whether to mourn or to celebrate that ignorance. Say that theology means wondering if the church is a two-thousand-year-old dance before the empty tomb or a two-thousand-year-old funeral at the foot of the Cross. Say that doing theology means recovering a sense of the world as shot through with grace and beauty-and hoping that world looks like a garden in bloom, but fearing it looks like the lawn outside Peter and Paul Chaldean Catholic Church. Say, finally, that discipleship means inhabiting such contradictions; that theology itself dwells in them, as evoked in Hebrews 2:7-9:
"You made him for a little while lower than the angels, you crowned him with glory and honor, you placed all things in subjection under his feet. At present we do not yet see all things subjected to him; but we do see Jesus, who was for a little while made lower than the angels, is crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death."
We do see Jesus-the broken and bloody body of Christ-scattered across the margins of the American empire. If that is helpful, it may be because we know who Jesus is and what his death meant and can therefore get a handle on what senseless death means. But I doubt it. I also doubt we know what senseless death means and can therefore get a handle on what the Cross meant. If theology is helpful it is not because it allows us to say anything, but because it pushes us toward silence; it unveils our ignorance and makes it hurt.
For the full article see Commonweal, 28 March issue:
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=2183&var_recherche=Peter+dula
G K Chesterton captured something of this in the lines of his poem, "The Ballad of the White Horse" (I think):
I tell you naught for your comfort
Yea, naught for your desire
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher
During Holy Week of 2004 I was in Baghdad, where I worked as coordinator of the Iraq program for the Mennonite Central Committee. That was the week that the stupidity of the Iraq war became unavoidably obvious, at least outside the Beltway. On Palm Sunday, the day the people of Jerusalem took to the streets to welcome a messiah they did not comprehend any more than we do, thousands of Moqtada al-Sadr’s followers shut down central Baghdad’s streets, protesting the arrest of a top aide and the closing of al-Sadr’s newspaper.
Later that week-the week when we celebrate Christ’s triumph over death, and forgiveness over vengeance-the American military unleashed an assault on Fallujah in which 518 Iraqis were killed, including 237 women and children. In an Easter Sunday letter to the Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship I wrote: “Jesus has indeed risen even if it was a hell of a long time ago and even if there is no evidence of it in Baghdad.” At a church the night before, I had listened to a priest preach on a story from St. Ephraim, then announce the times for the next day’s Mass, adding an ominous caution: “Please go directly home. Do not linger and do not walk home in large groups.”
Peter's conclusion offers little comfort but a reminder of the reality that the path to the resurrection is not one goes anywhere except through Good Friday.
Why is it a theological failure, if it is, to say that “Jesus is risen even though it was a long time ago and there is no evidence of it in Baghdad”? What is theology? Say that theology calls us to remember the eschaton, to remember that the end times are not on their way but began at Golgotha two thousand years ago. Say that theology means negotiating the edges between celebrating the already and mourning the not-yet, and confessing that we rarely know which is which-and still less whether to mourn or to celebrate that ignorance. Say that theology means wondering if the church is a two-thousand-year-old dance before the empty tomb or a two-thousand-year-old funeral at the foot of the Cross. Say that doing theology means recovering a sense of the world as shot through with grace and beauty-and hoping that world looks like a garden in bloom, but fearing it looks like the lawn outside Peter and Paul Chaldean Catholic Church. Say, finally, that discipleship means inhabiting such contradictions; that theology itself dwells in them, as evoked in Hebrews 2:7-9:
"You made him for a little while lower than the angels, you crowned him with glory and honor, you placed all things in subjection under his feet. At present we do not yet see all things subjected to him; but we do see Jesus, who was for a little while made lower than the angels, is crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death."
We do see Jesus-the broken and bloody body of Christ-scattered across the margins of the American empire. If that is helpful, it may be because we know who Jesus is and what his death meant and can therefore get a handle on what senseless death means. But I doubt it. I also doubt we know what senseless death means and can therefore get a handle on what the Cross meant. If theology is helpful it is not because it allows us to say anything, but because it pushes us toward silence; it unveils our ignorance and makes it hurt.
For the full article see Commonweal, 28 March issue:
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=2183&var_recherche=Peter+dula
G K Chesterton captured something of this in the lines of his poem, "The Ballad of the White Horse" (I think):
I tell you naught for your comfort
Yea, naught for your desire
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher
Remembering Bonhoeffer
Today the Christian church throughout the world remembers the life and witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This year the day falls on the eve of Good Friday. The closing verses of his poem "Stages on the Way to Freedom' are an appropriate text for reflecting on the significance of Jesus's final journey on Good Friday.
Wondrous is the change. The strong active hands are bound now.
Powerless and alone, you see the end of your action.
Yet you breathe a sigh of relief and lay it aside quietly trusting to stronger hands and are content.
Only for a moment did you touch the bliss of freedom, then you gave it back to God that he might gloriously fulfil it.
Come now, highest feast on the way to everlasting freedom,
death. Lay waste the burdens of chains and walls which confine our earthly bodies and blinded souls, that we may see at last what here we could not see.
Freedom, we sought you long in discipline, action and suffering.
Dying, we recognize you now in the face of God.
Wondrous is the change. The strong active hands are bound now.
Powerless and alone, you see the end of your action.
Yet you breathe a sigh of relief and lay it aside quietly trusting to stronger hands and are content.
Only for a moment did you touch the bliss of freedom, then you gave it back to God that he might gloriously fulfil it.
Come now, highest feast on the way to everlasting freedom,
death. Lay waste the burdens of chains and walls which confine our earthly bodies and blinded souls, that we may see at last what here we could not see.
Freedom, we sought you long in discipline, action and suffering.
Dying, we recognize you now in the face of God.
Monday, 6 April 2009
The Lamb enters the Dreaming
The Lamb Enters the Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World by Robert Kenny (Scribe, 2010) is a stunning piece of historical exploration.Kenny explores the conversion of Nathanael Pepper of the Wotjobaluk people of the Wimmera region of Victoria in 1860 through the agency of the Moravian missionaries.
Exploration by Kenny of the conversion of Nathanael Pepper is tackled by an engagement not only with the historical sources but by exploring the possible meanings of those sources against the intellectual currents of the day and the moral commitments of the chief actors in the drama.
Kenny, avowedly agnostic, is impressive in allowing the possibility of agency to the Aboriginals in the story in the account of Christian conversion, and challenges along the way many of the orthodoxies of how Australians and the Europeans thought about one another.
This is an open exploratory piece of writing that engages with issues of moral change and forgiveness. Kenny also wades into the debates about the ambiguities of Darwinian thought in its undercutting of the commitment by Evangelical Christianity to the belief that all humanity was of 'one blood'.
Kenny concludes his many facted exploration that evokes the signficance of place in his journey to try and understand Pepper and his choices with the folowing challenging paragraph:
Far from being "agents of the flag", the evangelicals were the main European vocie of concern. It was not "enlightened science" that exclaimed the unity of humainity; on the contrary, the "men of the world" usually pronounced the opposite. The evangelicals of the late eighteenth and early ninetennth centuries directed their attention to the mystery of human diversity in an increasingly known - and thus diverse - world. They used their Scripture to prove "One blood". This was not an argument but stubborn assertion, a faith in our commonality, which may be still the only way for our salvation. (p.341)
Why developing counties might be the key to recovery?
http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=12804
Michael Mullins in Eureka Street notes:
Michael Mullins in Eureka Street notes:
The Economist outlines the case for directing money towards the world's poor. It argues that offering new sources of funding to developing nations makes good economic sense. It is not charity.
The Economist says that while these countries have far less fiscal room for manoeuvre than rich economies, 'they are also areas of the world where growth could rebound quite quickly, because households are not weighed down by the crushing debts typical in America and Europe'.
It is at once astonishing and heartening to consider that stimulating the economies of poor nations could kick-start the global economy.
Many of us have struggled to come to terms with the fact that the only solution to this crisis might be to put more money into bailing out the wealthy banks that caused the problem. Now that the G20 London Summit has uncovered a spirit of international cooperation, it is time for the G20 to take a few extra steps, and give currency to the idea of giving developing nations a pivotal role in remaking the world economy.
Sunday, 5 April 2009
Palm Sunday as Street Theatre
Palm Sunday can become an occasion to get the congregation briefly out of the church building and take the liturgy around the block - on one occasion I can remember in Queanbeyan with a real live donkey. Great fun for the kids in particular.
The full political force of what is going on gets lost in most sermons about this story from the Gospels.
Let’s try and break open this familiarity that conceals an uncomfortable strangeness by going back to look again at Mark’s account of Jesus’ approach to Jerusalem.
Mark's gospel was probably written just before or perhaps even during the uprising of Jewish nationalists against the imperial power of Rome in 66 AD. In a conflict that lasted till AD 70, Jewish forces sought to regain political and religious control of their nation in a bitter guerilla war that raged across Galilee and Judea ending in defeat following the Roman siege of Jerusalem.
This was a time of struggle for survival by peasant farmers with guerillas raiding the countryside making up for their lack of numbers and limited military resources by their tactics and their willingness to give their lives in God’s cause.
Mark recorded the story of Jesus for a church that was asking questions about what faithfulness to Jesus as the crucified and risen Messiah meant during this time of war and conflict. Should they support their fellow countrymen? Were they being disloyal if they did not join the military struggle against Rome?
Mark tells the story of Jesus’ approach to Jerusalem in a way that was intended to challenge his listeners and suggest a way of coming to some conclusions as to what their response should be.
Jesus approaches Jerusalem not on a war-horse as a conquering military figure, but on a colt, not a form of transport normally associated with royalty. No Jewish king or roman emperor would choose to ride such an animal when entering in triumph into a conquered city.
Yet that is what Mark is hinting at. Here is the conqueror, the Messiah. Certainly there are the crowds in the story during Jesus’ approach to Jerusalem. But after all the build up of having got to Jerusalem Jesus does not make a triumphal entry into the Temple. He simply looks around and then wanders off to supper with friends. It is a total anti climax – the scene is set by Mark you would think if not for a coup but at least for a confrontation with the authorities – but nothing happens.
What’s going on here?
Mark drops clues all the way through that point toward a warrior Messiah but doesn’t follow through to provide a stunning political conclusion in the way that his hearers would have expected. Sure we have the reference to David- the warrior king par excellence in Jewish history. Mark does not deny the political dimensions of Jesus as messiah but instead challenges the accepted conventions as to what the politics of the Messiah will be. Mark points to a Jesus who does not take up the role of warrior.
Jesus procession to Jerusalem is a form of street theatre which signals his claims as messiah, while at the same time pointing to a very different understanding of the character of the Messiah from that which was commonly held.
Mark’s account rhetorically challenges three groups:
➢ Those who were committed to getting rid of the Romans by military means.
➢ Those who withdrew into a spiritual response that avoided issues of economic injustice and Roman imperialism.
➢ Those who simply wanted to get along with business as usual whoever was in charge.
According to Mark none of these ways is open to the community of disciples. The way of Jesus is different. Jesus lives out a rejection of the politics of violence, the politics of withdrawal and the politics of accommodation. For Mark’s full account of this subversive messiah we will have to wait for the readings over the Easter week.
The full political force of what is going on gets lost in most sermons about this story from the Gospels.
Let’s try and break open this familiarity that conceals an uncomfortable strangeness by going back to look again at Mark’s account of Jesus’ approach to Jerusalem.
Mark's gospel was probably written just before or perhaps even during the uprising of Jewish nationalists against the imperial power of Rome in 66 AD. In a conflict that lasted till AD 70, Jewish forces sought to regain political and religious control of their nation in a bitter guerilla war that raged across Galilee and Judea ending in defeat following the Roman siege of Jerusalem.
This was a time of struggle for survival by peasant farmers with guerillas raiding the countryside making up for their lack of numbers and limited military resources by their tactics and their willingness to give their lives in God’s cause.
Mark recorded the story of Jesus for a church that was asking questions about what faithfulness to Jesus as the crucified and risen Messiah meant during this time of war and conflict. Should they support their fellow countrymen? Were they being disloyal if they did not join the military struggle against Rome?
Mark tells the story of Jesus’ approach to Jerusalem in a way that was intended to challenge his listeners and suggest a way of coming to some conclusions as to what their response should be.
Jesus approaches Jerusalem not on a war-horse as a conquering military figure, but on a colt, not a form of transport normally associated with royalty. No Jewish king or roman emperor would choose to ride such an animal when entering in triumph into a conquered city.
Yet that is what Mark is hinting at. Here is the conqueror, the Messiah. Certainly there are the crowds in the story during Jesus’ approach to Jerusalem. But after all the build up of having got to Jerusalem Jesus does not make a triumphal entry into the Temple. He simply looks around and then wanders off to supper with friends. It is a total anti climax – the scene is set by Mark you would think if not for a coup but at least for a confrontation with the authorities – but nothing happens.
What’s going on here?
Mark drops clues all the way through that point toward a warrior Messiah but doesn’t follow through to provide a stunning political conclusion in the way that his hearers would have expected. Sure we have the reference to David- the warrior king par excellence in Jewish history. Mark does not deny the political dimensions of Jesus as messiah but instead challenges the accepted conventions as to what the politics of the Messiah will be. Mark points to a Jesus who does not take up the role of warrior.
Jesus procession to Jerusalem is a form of street theatre which signals his claims as messiah, while at the same time pointing to a very different understanding of the character of the Messiah from that which was commonly held.
Mark’s account rhetorically challenges three groups:
➢ Those who were committed to getting rid of the Romans by military means.
➢ Those who withdrew into a spiritual response that avoided issues of economic injustice and Roman imperialism.
➢ Those who simply wanted to get along with business as usual whoever was in charge.
According to Mark none of these ways is open to the community of disciples. The way of Jesus is different. Jesus lives out a rejection of the politics of violence, the politics of withdrawal and the politics of accommodation. For Mark’s full account of this subversive messiah we will have to wait for the readings over the Easter week.
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